You may not have noticed, but everyone in the play dies because of the idiocy of the two. You may want to read it again.

To be clear, I don’t even have too much of a problem with the book, aside from the fact that I’m required to know religious shit for the class, and somewhat the creeper plotline. I just wanted to know the forum’s opinion.

So tell the teacher you have never read the Bible and you have no prior knowledge of biblical themes? That seems like a pretty good solution. Maybe be a bit more open minded, and don’t disregard the bible or the references you’ll find to it, because to be honest, you’re going to find biblical references in just about every fucking book you ever read from here on out. If you decide to go on to college, your English classes there will likely require you to read Dante’s Inferno, assuming you don’t already read it in High School, and you’ll probably have to read some sections of the Bible as well. I don’t honestly think you can survive in any English curriculum without being willing to accept biblical references.

I am currently being forced against my will to read it in English. If you are unfamiliar with the book, let me tell you, it is quite disturbing.

60 pages in, and already, there’s been exchanges between the main characters, Johnny and Owen, about how good Johnny’s mom’s tits are. Later, Owen kills her by hitting her in the head with a baseball, which is unrelated, but also kinda dumb.

Then, it goes into extensive detail about how Hester, Johnny’s cousin by blood – this is important – “fuck[s] the brains out of every boy her brothers ever knew,” and yes, that is a direct quotation. In the next few pages, Johnny is strapped on top of Hester (who is strapped to her bed) and forced to make out with her by his older cousins, because he lost some game (while they watch, and enjoy it). Then the author goes into way too much detail about the kissing, and how much he enjoyed it. Then Johnny talks about how he intentionally loses the game many, many times so he can do it again. And then it goes on about how she “felt his hard-on” during these sessions. Yes, that’s another direct quote. Did I mention that they’re 10 at this point?

I don’t imagine the book gets less pedophilic and offensive as it progresses.

There’s also very pronounced Christian themes in the book, as idiotic as that might sound after reading those last paragraphs, and I am expected to know all of the allusions and relations to characters and events in the bible.

So the question is, taking into account all of that, should things like this be taught in school?

Er, we read Lolita. Not excerpts, not summaries, the entire, actual text. A Prayer for Owen Meany is honestly pretty tame as far as “pedophilia” when compared to Lolita, which is literally a work entirely about pedophilia.

If it bugs you that much, talk to the teacher, tell him/her the book is making you feel uncomfortable, and if he/she refuses to do anything (Unlikely) change classes.

Q3) What is the meaning of life?
A3) A part of it is so that we may know and love God.

What's the other part?

If there wasn’t any choice about choosing God, then what would it mean to choose him?

Why does my "choosing" (for choosing is impossible without choice) God have to means something?

Q6) Why can’t we understand/comprehend everything about God?
A6) This probably has to do with choices. Would it really be a choice to choose God if we already understood everything about Him? Wouldn’t we undoubtedly choose Him if we already knew everything?

The reason we can't understand/comprehend everything about God is quite simple, really. God is "defined" as being all-powerful, which is a contradiction with the system of logic that seems to define how the universe works, and thus, if we assume the existence of God, we must either accept that he is not all-powerful (contradicting the original defintion, which is bad.) or we must accept that God is beyond logic, and thus, beyond the capability of the primitive Logic-based Operating System our brains run on.

Q7) Why did God let us suffer, etc.

Other, more acceptable answers include: Read Job, read the story of Abraham, and read Job again.
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Also, in the future, giving the vague "Go read the Bible" answer is much less than sufficient. If you're going to suggest reading to people, at least specify what you'd like them to read, unless it doesn't matter. In the case of the Bible, it always matters, so when suggesting people read the Bible, give some specific stories or passages to focus on.

Pointing to the letter of the law and saying “sucks to be you, doofus” is the other side of the medal.

Not what I was doing. I’m appealing to logic rather than the letter of the law, as the law can be flawed, but logic is, by design, meant to be flawless. Whether or not this is actually the case isn’t really debatable, as doing so would rely upon logical arguments to being with. That’s not to say we should simply assume logic to be perfect, but for the purpose of my arguments I’m assuming that it is, for the reasons that Kant explained in the Transcendental Idealism.

Besides, I could potentially point towards a fallacy in which you assume there exists something as “inherently immoral”. That’s an inherent contradiction, all right.

Can you clarify this? I’m seeing two ways to read that “Inherent contradiction” bit, and I’m not sure which you’re using. I’m also not sure what fallacy you’re referring to. Yes, I assume there is something that is inherently immoral, because that is what I believe. I believe morality is determined on an objective, static basis rather than a subjective, case-by-case basis. I’m not a moral relativist.

Nevertheless, this situation can be approached in a very simple way. Legally, a person has the right to sell something at a price of his choosing. If his clients do not accept the price, it is not illegal to lower it. While it is stupid to not lower it, he has all the right to be stupid. On the other hand, it is illegal to steal. Stealing causes you to receive punishment. It is not illegal to be deadly ill, neither is it illegal to not have the money to change that. There’s a third thing, though, which is that unless the cure is very exclusive, hospitals can always buy it from the developer. After that, you can just be cured at a hospital. When it’s an exclusive item, it’s an entirely different story, since then there’s probably more people wanting it.

Is this a response to me, or is this your answer to the problem proposed by the TC?(I’m not trying to nitpick or argue with this, I’m just trying to figure out which of my claims you are attacking and which things I need to address =])

1. Should Heinz steal the drug?
No. Stealing the drug would be immoral, as stealing is itself an inherently immoral act. Morality should not bend to certain circumstances simply because it is convenient. If you want to be moral, you must apply your morality universally, else your morality is inconsistent, and thus, worthless. Deontology almost always trumps consequentialism, and this is especially so in this case, simply because the consequentialist standpoint is too nebulous. The woman is near death from the cancer, and the doctors think this medicine will save her. There isn’t a defined level of certainty that this medicine will successfully save the woman and allow her a full recovery. Consequentialism bases its moral determinations on the end result of the action, but in cases like this (and pretty much all actions), the result isn’t known until the action has been committed. Consequentialism bases its moral determinations on knowledge that an individual like Heinz cannot possibly know when in the moment deciding how to act. As Kierkegaard said, “In the moment of acting, the consequences can be of no importance to the hero.”

Also worth considering is the idea that the treatment might cure her of the cancer, but it could potentially cause an infinite number of different side-effects that might make the woman’s life not worth living. Quality of life trumps quantity of life, sure, the woman might survive, but we really have no reason to believe that she won’t end up suffering a fate worse than death after this treatment. Granted, we have no reason to believe that she will end up suffering after the treatment, but recall that the consequentialist paradigm makes its moral determination based on the end result. If Heinz steals the drug and his wife gets cured but also ends up suffering from constant cluster headaches for the rest of her life, consequentialism would call him immoral. Consequentialism is just too fickle a moral paradigm to rely upon in this, or any other instance.

So since we can’t consider the end result of the action as important in the moral determination, we’re left with only the action itself as a way to judge whether or not Heinz should steal the drug. Since stealing is intrinsically wrong due to its inherently manipulative nature, as well as our inability to universalize it, stealing would be wrong in all circumstances from a deontological standpoint, and thus, stealing itself is wrong.

2. What if Heinz does not love his wife?
Irrelevant. Stealing is always wrong.

3. What if the drug is for his beloved cat?
Irrelevant. Stealing is always wrong.

4. What if the druggist is poor?
Irrelevant. Stealing is always wrong.

5. If caught, what would a judge rule?
Guilty. If Heinz were caught stealing the medicine, he would be guilty of theft, and the judge would then be bound to find him guilty of committing this crime.

It seems awfully silly for us to categorize and label one specific preference, but not all of the others. Why don’t we have words for people who prefer the color green to the color blue, or people who prefer driving trucks instead of minivans, or people who like writing in cursive more than in print?

What is so special about one’s sexual preference that suddenly makes it important to label at all? Most of the problems that stem from issues surrounding homosexuality are a direct result of our incessant need to label one’s sexual preference as some kind of inarguable, unchangeable character trait.

Sexual preference is just that; a preference. Preferences can change, are hardly universalizable for the individual holding the preference(I like green, but not a mix of green and brown. One can be “homosexual” and not like certain qualities/individuals in their preferred gender), and they really can’t be pinned down with such wildly general words as “homosexual”, “bisexual” and “heterosexual”.

I wasn’t specifically saying they weren’t allowed, just that this is the main reason they shouldn’t be.

Not every response to you is an argument against your claim or some kind of personal attack =P I wasn’t trying to debate you or argue you on the issue, nor was I trying to strawman your claim, I was just trying to provide a bit of relevant information on the subject. But it’s no big deal; unfortunately it’s often hard to tell on SD =\

Or maybe I should have said : If squirt guns are outlawed, only squirts will have guns!

SECTION 1. Chapter 709, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows: "§709- Sale of toy guns to minors prohibited. (1) It shall be unlawful to sell, attempt to sell, or offer for sale a toy gun to a minor under eighteen years of age…

Does this sound like their politicians are short on common sense? Should we ban toy guns?

Well, there’s no real problem here. This law just ensures that minors can’t obtain a toy gun without their parent’s, or some other adult’s consent. This isn’t a ban on toy guns, it’s a ban on selling toy guns to children. Adults can still buy toy guns all they want, and since most children young enough to play with guns don’t actually have a disposable income to speak of, I don’t see any new, unique problems that arise from this law. The parents would probably have to pay for the toy gun no matter what, so nothing substantive is really being done here.

Ask a cop who mistakenly shot a boy who was wielding a realistic looking water gun how he/she feels about this.

Yeah, I’d say this is the main reason why realistic-looking water guns (or any) shouldn’t be allowed to be sold at all.

I’m pretty sure it’s actually against the law to sell realistic looking toy guns. They have to have the little orange tips on the end of the gun barrel. If they don’t, they become, for all intents and purposes, a weapon, because it’s indistinguishable from the real deal.

In fact, Sojuki’s picture points that out at the bottom. (By the way, I’m pretty sure the red gun is real and the black gun is fake. The black gun’s grip appears to be perfectly perpendicular to the barrel of the gun, which is something I’ve seen in very few actual pistols. Furthermore, the barrel is sticking pretty far out of the slide even though the slide isn’t pulled back at all, which is something I’ve never seen in an actual pistol. But neither of those qualities would be easily determined by a police officer having to make a life or death decision in which his own life, and the lives of those around him might be in jeopardy.)

Originally posted by FuzzyBacon:We’re not paid to spend all day memorizing Hungarian swear words, and as a result, only the Hungarian mods (or those who are familiar with whatever the language of Hungary is) would be in a position to take action on it.

But most people are already aware that there is no reason why Christians would reject science; that’s where the arguments come in about Christians being illogical, because many Christians reject the more complex claims proven by science without a cohesive reason. You’d just be telling us things we already know, which is kind of a waste of time, and a bit of an annoyance.

And to be honest, I don’t think these threads would mesh well with the idea of this board; SD is meant for discussions, not history lectures.

I don’t think you understand what I am proposing. With respect to science, I would be arguing against the popular misconception that there is necessary contradiction between the findings of modern science and the traditional beliefs of Christianity.

I am not proposing history lectures. I am proposing threads in which I would make an argument, based on historical, philosophical and other grounds, for the truth of a particular proposition. SD is not meant for that?

You can make threads based upon whatever the hell you want. SD is meant for serious discussions, that’s the only requirement. Your threads would certainly meed that criterion.

You specifically asked: “Does this sound like something that would be of interest?”

I am answering your question with a “no”. Something like that wouldn’t be of interest to me, because you would be explaining things that I am either already aware of, or don’t care about in the first place. Whether or not you and your claims are correct when/if you make these threads is irrelevant. I just don’t think you’d get the kind of turnout in the threads that you want, and I really don’t see why you have to make a thread about something that most of the people in SD are already fully aware of.

If we removed ambiguity in language, what type of effect may that have on the ways we communicate?

I feel like the ambiguity in language makes it feel more organic; if we created a “perfect” or ambiguity-lacking language, it would feel too artificial, in my opinion, and it would likely be too limited in application/scope as compared to our current ambiguity-ridden languages.

Furthermore, is it possible to fully remove ambiguity in language?

I don’t think so, because I feel as though slang would still arise, and then be pushed into the realm of a normal aspect of the language over time.

I personally don’t like the idea, because I feel like religion is done to death on these boards/the internet in general. Furthermore, if you were to do this, you’d run the risk of over-generalizing your own experiences and beliefs by linking them to all other Christians.

Some Christians do hate/fear/deny/not understand science. Some Christians are arrogant for claiming to have the truth. Just because you happen to have different views doesn’t make you correct, nor does it make you a better representative of your religion. Christianity is very much open to interpretation. Historical events are open to discussion when it comes to motivations and causes. Ancient history tends to be a bit fuzzy on details, like “where is the original Bible”. All of the proposed threads you listed would be subject to huge amounts of subjective interpretation and analysis, and any conclusions you could come up with would probably be hypothesis at best, and opinion at worst.

My intent was to avoid entirely my feelings or the feelings of other Christians about any of these topics and stick with the facts. So while the myth might be “Christians hate/fear/deny/not understand science,” my intent would be to show that this fear is borne of a perceived conflict between science and religion (reason and faith) where none exists. I can demonstrate that there is no reason for Christians to reject science, even though I know that some Christians always will.

But most people are already aware that there is no reason why Christians would reject science; that’s where the arguments come in about Christians being illogical, because many Christians reject the more complex claims proven by science without a cohesive reason. You’d just be telling us things we already know, which is kind of a waste of time, and a bit of an annoyance.

And to be honest, I don’t think these threads would mesh well with the idea of this board; SD is meant for discussions, not history lectures.

Faith is justifiable by reason, but faith cannot be born of reason alone. Faith is, by it’s very nature, a rejection of reason and rationality on a specific subject. One can rationally or reasonably justify being faithful, but one cannot rationally or reasonably make one’s self faithful.

Faith is not a rejection of reason, faith is accepting something as true when an evidential gap precludes reason from taking you the entire way. Faith is a bridge between reason and the acceptance of certain propositions as being true.

Accepting something as true when an evidential gap precludes reason from taking you the entire way is a rejection of reason. Pure reason makes no assumptions and refuses to accept anything that is not fully, perfectly proven.

I personally don’t like the idea, because I feel like religion is done to death on these boards/the internet in general. Furthermore, if you were to do this, you’d run the risk of over-generalizing your own experiences and beliefs by linking them to all other Christians.

Some Christians do hate/fear/deny/not understand science. Some Christians are arrogant for claiming to have the truth. Just because you happen to have different views doesn’t make you correct, nor does it make you a better representative of your religion. Christianity is very much open to interpretation. Historical events are open to discussion when it comes to motivations and causes. Ancient history tends to be a bit fuzzy on details, like “where is the original Bible”. All of the proposed threads you listed would be subject to huge amounts of subjective interpretation and analysis, and any conclusions you could come up with would probably be hypothesis at best, and opinion at worst.

Eh, sounds like a waste of time to me. You would only be able to put the viewpoint of your own particular sect of Christianity. There are a large variety of denominations; and it would be impossible for you to make statements that apply to all of them.

And, really, you will just end up at the "There’s no proof, no way to prove it; it has had a negative impact on humanity; its holy book is self-contradicting; and requires at least partial denial of reason.

I completely agree with you, both faith and reason are important; I don’t think the two are at odds as much as some people tend to believe.

Faith is justifiable by reason, but faith cannot be born of reason alone. Faith is, by it’s very nature, a rejection of reason and rationality on a specific subject. One can rationally or reasonably justify being faithful, but one cannot rationally or reasonably make one’s self faithful.

To try to clarify, I can use reason and rationality to conclude “It’s acceptable that I have faith”. I cannot use reason and rationality to achieve faith.

I wasnt trying to oppose fact, since I’m sort of doing a generalisation to all systems. I’m sticking to “they have better things to do”. I believe the system are more or less busy solving bigger problems than “who hit who too hard this time”.

Er…bright line standard please? How does an individual determine when they have and have not been unacceptably assaulted? Is domestic abuse not something the police should deal with as well? What about the people that will unintentionally or otherwise call the police with an occurance that ends up not being severe enough to warrant their involvement? What about the people that don’t call the police at all, even though they are being unacceptably assaulted, because they don’t think it is severe enough to warrant the police’s involvement?

I will report to the system is someone steal my bike, but if I’m having a heated argument with a girl that finally decides to slap me, I still wont decide to run away and call the police.

If you don’t think the incident is severe enough that it requires some kind of intervention, then yeah, don’t call the police. But if you feel that justice needs to be served and this girl needs to have some consequences for slapping you, the solution is calling the police, not assaulting her back.

It should be obvious that the police cant deal with every single injustification, especially if everyone report everything that ever happens. And even if they would be able to deal with absolutely every report, that wouldnt make sure they will all be justified. My own oppinion would be that the police has better things to do, and that any induvidual have an own right to try and solve their own problems.

So the police just get to pick and choose which laws they want to uphold based on the claim that they have better things to do? I’m sorry, but the police can, and do deal with every single “injustification” that is reported to them; it’s kinda their primary job, aside from responding to imminent threats to society. It might take a while, but they can, and will get to every “injustification” they are informed of.

I shouldn’t need to say this, but you still haven’t provided any evidence to back up your claim that such a complaint won’t be addressed at all.

“Three gods A, B, and C are called, in no particular order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are ‘da’ and ‘ja’, in some order. You do not know which word means which.”

Given that you must ask each question to only one god, you have only 3 questions, and you don’t know which answer, da or ja, stands for yes and which stands for no, I really don’t think you can solve this puzzle.

The wiki topic on the subject has a pretty poor “solution”. I’ve tried working it out several different ways, and with the limitation of 3 questions, I can’t figure out a way to deduce anything, because I can’t really come to a conclusion on what da and ja mean at all, and I can’t see a way to identify any of the gods without asking each god a question, and even then I can only figure out one god that is not random. How can you deduce which god’s are and are not random without asking each one of them a question?

This topic is about whether it is okay to hit a girl or not. Please stay on topic.

So you’re implying you went off-topic? I responded to your statement in a discussion topic. Not sure how much easier I can make it here. Apology accepted.

Drop it. Instead of trying to elevate yourself above him by arguing every inconsequential word he types, stick to the discussion at hand. You both derailed the thread, and these kinds of responses only derail it further.

I’m saying that, for equality, both sexes must give up their advantages. Even the women. In regards to the whole idealistic stuff, and the celebrity analogy, my best reply is that I I am directly influenced by strikes from a woman, and will retaliate equally. The difference from your analogy is that you are neglecting personal, individual harm done by the act. A slap stings. I’ve been slapped before, out of the blue. We hadn’t spoken all day, and while leaving the classroom, I was turned to, told “Have a happy thanksgiving,” and promptly smacked. For reference, the only communication we had was we shared a Study Hall, where talking was not allowed. Know why she did it out of the blue, so randomly? Because girls think it is okay. They think it’s either a way to vent or a way to flirt. No more, I hit them back now. I agree that they should be equal to us, and this means them giving up their advantages to strike us with impunity. I deliver my own justice since the courts refuse to provide proper equality.

You can be killed in a car accident cause by a celebrity drinking and driving, and the celebrity could get off with a slap on the wrist. If you killed another person, hell, if you killed a celebrity, while driving drunk, you’d probably be locked away for as long as legally allowable. Inequality in the justice system is inequality in the justice system. It should be remedied, not by doing away with the justice system (or just the specific law), but by doing away with the problem; the inequality. Make the system equal by applying the laws against violence to both women and men, but don’t just get rid of the laws against violence altogether.

Neither of these times were particularly “self-defense,” though they still followed the legal guidelines of “equal or lesser force.”

Is that actually the legal guideline? Because if so, then legally men can feel free to hit women with equal or lesser force. I’m still of the opinion that no one, man or woman, should hit anyone with any force, but that’s a normative issue based in opinion, not concrete fact.

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